Non-Bible-believer questions on the flood...

by undercover 15 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  undercover

  A friend of mine who is atheist gets all wound up when the subject of Noah's flood comes up. He doesn't rely on scientific discoveries or explanations to deny that the flood happened, he uses his own logic.

  Some of his statements(some of em are hilarious):

  How long did it take him to travel the earth and collect all the animals?
  Did he have to build other boats to transport animals from islands to his home to put on the big boat?
  How did he get so many animals on that one boat?
  How come the lions didn't eat the sheep?
  Who shoveled the elephant shit off the boat everyday?
  Did the rhinos sleep on the bottom deck or the top deck?
  How many boat columns did the buffalo break rubbing up against them?
  How many aquariums did Noah have?
  How did he transport fresh water fish and salt water fish?
  How much sand did he load on the ark to keep sand dwelling critters happy? Where did he get the sand?
  What did the vultures eat? What did Noah eat?
  Where did he keep the insects?
  Why did he preserve roaches? Those things are nasty.
  Where did all the water come from? Where did it all go? Where is it now?
  How did Noah get Koala bears and kangaroos to Australia and American Buffalo to the west plains?
  Did he drop off animals as they floated by different parts of the globe?
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  As a dub, I played the "[insert miracle here]" game to justify/explain the Noah story. Jehovah miraculously brought him the animals, Jehovah miraculously put them all back where they belong. The Bible says the animals ate vegetation (doesn't it? Can't recall now) so Noah stocked up on straw for them. (Straw has little nutrition value, he probably brought hay instead. "C'mon, mouse, eat your hay now...")

  He didn't need to bring fish, the Bible says only the animals on dry ground expired. (No word on how the fresh water fish and salt water fish [and cold water fish and hot water fish]) survived the mixing of their environments.)

  And of course you know the dub/fundy line on how the earth was different before the flood; water canopy, shallow seas, shortish mountains, all that guff.

  I even read where some believe God shrunk the animals (or Noah took baby animals) so they would all fit on the ark.

  I've never heard anybody try to explain where all the animal waste would have gone. The only opening was on the top deck, so somebody had to haul it all up from two lower decks and shove it out the window. (How would you like to be a survivor, riding in a row boat, waiting to starve to death, only to have a bucket of elephant dung flung onto you!)

  Of course, all of this falls completely apart when you ask, "If God was willing to open his 'miracle bag' to make the ark thing possible, why bother with the ark at all?" (Elder: "So don't ask!")

  Dave
• 

  William Penwell

  The flood stories actually predate the bibles version, like the stories of Gilgamesh. They were oral stories that were passed down from one generation to the next. there is no doubt that these stories were based on some facts but it was only a local regional flood account that took in the known civilized world at the time. Over hundreds and thousands of years these oral traditions get stretched out of shaped till we come up with the present day account. These stories were analogical tales, not to be taken literally. There is so many details that cannot not be explained by this flood account.

  Will
• 

  VM44

  Has the Watchtower ever tried to explain why the Meteor Crater in northern Arizona was untouched by the Flood? Hmmmmm? --VM44

  Meteor Crater, Northern Arizona, USA

  This crater was formed by the impact of an iron-nickel meteorite impacting into the high arid plains of the Colorado Plateau about 50,000 years ago. The body, estimated to have been about 50 meters in diameter and weighed several hundred thousand metric tons, was traveling on the order of 15 kilometers per second and impacted with a kinetic energy of some 30-40 megatons of TNT equivalent. The result of the collision was to form, in just a second or so, a large bowl-shaped crater 1.2 kilometers across and over 150 meters deep. Nearly 100 million tons of rock was thrown out to form a continuous ejecta blanket around the crater. Strong air and ground shock waves were felt for tens of kilometers away. Relatively little erosion has occurred leaving the crater well-preserved. The Barringer Meteorite Crater now serves as the prototype of the classic bowl-shaped impact crater found throughout in our solar system. It has played a dominant role in public education, NASA planetary studies, and scientific research in impact cratering.

  http://www.meteorcrater.com/eventsfun/cratercs/index.htm
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  Colorado Plateau about 50,000 years ago.

  Typical JW: "Those lying scientists... anything to get published. Did you know there are actual cases of scientific fraud? How do we know that this isn't what Jehovah used to start the tectonic whats-it'ing needed to make the flood waters abate?"
• 

  AlanF

  I'd guess, VM44, that they'd dismiss the dating methods used to find the age. Of course, that's about as far as they'd go in thinking about it, since just a little thinking about geology shows any unprejudiced person that things like Meteor Crater can't possibly be just a few thousand years old.

  This reminds me of a discussion I had with a CO about the "vapor canopy". I pointed out that the huge amount of water claimed to be in the canopy couldn't possibly stay up there, since the thin air at high altitudes couldn't hold much water at all and there had to be something to hold it up. He brightly suggested that the canopy might have been in orbit. I patiently explained that that couldn't be, since a canopy is a spherical shell and a rotating shell could only have the proper orbital velocity about its equator. He absolutely could not understand this concept.

  AlanF
• 

  Raphael

  www.answersingenesis.org
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  AnswersInGenesis.org linked to this page http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-130b.htm containing this little gem of a conclusion:
  

  And such is the case for all the details of the Flood account. Its global magnitude may astound us, but taken as a whole and at face value, the difficulties always resolve themselves as we study and believe.

  So we can pretty much believe whatever we want to believe as long as we "believe".

  Dave
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  And while we're at it, CNN just had an article about the Giant panda making a recovery from the brink of extinction:

  http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/01/20/china.panda.reut/index.html

  It would seem that every species on the planet -- man included -- would have been on the "brink of extinction" after ambling off the ark. Amazing that so many species rebounded with such a limited gene pool!

  (Also note that the Panda eats only bamboo, so in addition to hay, Noah needed a good supply of bamboo. [and eucalyptus leaves, and...])
• 

  funkyderek

  Are pandas clean or unclean animals?